<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Twenty Facts About Martha Smith-Jones-Milligan by Nope</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25767970">Twenty Facts About Martha Smith-Jones-Milligan</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope'>Nope</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2010-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2010-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:07:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>978</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25767970</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, the other way that Indigo could have ended.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martha Jones/Thomas Milligan/Mickey Smith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Twenty Facts About Martha Smith-Jones-Milligan</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/10954887">Indigo</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope">Nope</a>.
        </li>

    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <ol>
<li>Martha runs every day.<br/> </li>
<li>This, she knows, is probably psychologically telling.  Displacement activity, adrenalin junkie, something.  She doesn't really care, though.  There's something immensely satisfying in just letting go and running all out, like you can escape anything, like you can catch up to some perfect future.  (Utopia, Martha knows, means no place.)<br/> </li>
<li>Mickey sometimes comes with her.  Tom never does.  Mickey calls him lazy and Tom challenges him to do a non-stop eight hour hospital shift and say that again and Martha clips them both about the back of the head and demands someone makes breakfast.  (She does it with love, though.)<br/> </li>
<li>They have a routine only because Tom has a routine.  Left to their own devices, they would each get lost in their work - Martha in her lab, and at the shelters; Mickey in his garage or at his machines.<br/> </li>
<li>The three of them each have their specific spaces - Tom has his little office with his collection of terrible pop music that he listens too on ridiculously expensive headphones, singing along tunelessly - and they each have the spaces they share: the kitchen (it's about the size of her whole flat, the one that got blown up), the lounge (the television is not technically terrestrial) and, of course, the bedroom.<br/> </li>
<li>On good days, Martha likes to sleep in the middle, snuggled against Mickey and spooned against Tom.  On bad days, she has to sleep nearest the exit, prepared to fight, prepared to flee.  They don't talk about it, but she knows they always let her pick her spot first before joining her.  It's the only reason she lets Mickey get away with keeping a gun in the room.  They all have their bad days.<br/> </li>
<li>The guns are for Mickey; she carries them to make him feel safe.  The medical equipment is for her; Martha carries it so she always remembers who she is, and what she wants.  (First, goes the rule, do no harm.)<br/> </li>
<li>Martha doesn't blame the Doctor for the harm he did, not any more.  She hopes Mickey doesn't either, though after they see him that last time, with the mess with the Sontarans, there's a whole month where Mickey clutches them too tight, sleeps stiff in their bed.<br/> </li>
<li>Tom is actually the least damaged one of them all, which is pretty good going for a man who spent three years stuck in ancient times and found out his fiancee had a new boyfriend when they finally came to rescue him.  (A new hot boyfriend, Tom points out, grinning, and Mickey says yeah, yeah, yeah, but he's grinning too.)<br/> </li>
<li>It's not that it's easy, because it isn't.  It takes a lot of negotiating, a lot of careful balancing and planning.  Jealousy comes and goes, and it's only natural.  Having to work at it just makes it all the more satisfying, though.  It's not conventional, and it's certainly not something she ever set out wanting, but it's what she has, and it's what works for her.  She loves, and she is loved, and they are loved.<br/> </li>
<li>She keeps in touch with UNIT and Torchwood, Sarah Jane and the kids.  If her life with the Doctor taught her anything, it's that you don't let friends go, not when you don't have to.<br/> </li>
<li>And when you do have to, you remember them fondly, as best you can, and let go of regrets.  (Even with a paradox machine, you can't go back again, not really.)<br/> </li>
<li>There's family, too, of course.  Tom's parents are dead, but he has a brother over in America who they see once a year or so.  Martha's mum and dad had a second try of it, but they split again, and Martha has given up being in the middle.  Leo seems to be handling that nicely, better than he is her new living situation.  Her parents are both fine with it, which on some days strikes Martha as the wrong way around and on others makes her think that, when you've seen whole countries burn, you learn to appreciate what you have.<br/> </li>
<li>Martha dreams of flames less and less with every passing day.<br/> </li>
<li>Mickey complains that he's always the one that ends up covered in alien goo, and Martha points out that he's the one with the contacts that gets them the jobs in the first place, and Tom ignores them both and cooks dinner, which is good, because Martha and Mickey would otherwise live on take-out.  They both can cook, they just don't want to and, besides, Tom finds it meditative - or at least that's what he says.<br/> </li>
<li>He also somehow manages to look hot in an apron, but Martha and Mickey have both thoroughly tested him for alien-ness, so it must be a uniquely Tom thing.  (You can call me Doctor Sexy, he offers, and they both laugh for so long he deliberately over-spices their chilli and then blinks innocently at them.)<br/> </li>
<li>They wear matching rings, each one inscribed with the same symbol, an M, a T and an M, arranged touching, the branches of the T across their tops, each sharing a down-stroke.<br/> </li>
<li>The rings are also spatio-temporal trackers, because Martha may be a romantic, but she certainly isn't stupid, and no-one is kidnapping her husbands without her say so, thank you very much.<br/> </li>
<li>One day, Martha thinks, the Doctor might show up again, and ask them along for a ride, and, when he does, both she and Mickey will turn to Tom and wait to see what he has to say about it.  Martha thinks he'll say yes.  Just one trip.  And because it's never just one trip, the universe would unfold once more around them but it would be better than before because, together, no matter where they were, they would always be home.<br/> </li>
<li>Plus they all got married on the back of an Apatosaurus, and how cool is that?</li>
</ol>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>